Maps

This may cause confusion or seem a waste of time for some, but Nokia has a long history of excellent mobile maps and sat nav. The frustration in this case comes in the fact that the current offering from Nokia for Windows Phone feels disjointed at best.

The Nokia Maps app relies on Over-The-Air (OTA) map data when the Nokia Drive app downloads the map data onto the phone. This makes us wonder whether the two apps are being developed by completely separate teams in different parts of the world.

Tapping on an address in the People app or other areas of the operating system brings up the Bing Maps app, whereas to use Nokia Maps you have to open the app, which has text-based search and display places options, sourcing all information OTA even though Nokia Drive has map data stored on the smartphone.

Once you've selected a location, you have the choice to walk or drive. This is where things get even more disconnected, because choosing to drive doesn't open the Nokia Drive app, but provides less capable OTA navigation functionality with Nokia Maps.

To use the sat nav functionality provided in Nokia Drive, you need to open this app instead and use the text entry search to find your location, since Nokia Drive doesn't support map-based location selection or local places display.

Nokia Drive then provides sat nav using the on-device maps, although the search functionality is still performed OTA.

Nokia apps

Along with Nokia Maps and Nokia Drive, Nokia has a number of other apps for Windows Phone including Contacts Transfer, Apps Highlight and Nokia Music, which all come pre-installed on the Nokia Lumia 710.

In addition to these is TuneIn Radio and a useful Network Setup app to help automate setting up internet and MMS services when switching SIM cards.

An interesting Nokia app, which is a little harder to find, since it's still in public beta, is Nokia Pulse, which is a group-based social app with push notifications of updates.

Microsoft apps

Microsoft has also been busy developing apps and games to populate the Windows Phone Marketplace. The good news is that many of these are free and include, Facebook, YouTube, Last.fm and a number of utility apps like Weather and Unit Converter.

One little app that appeared a few weeks ago is the Suggestion Box which is for users to suggest, and vote on other peoples, improvements or changes to the current Windows Phone OS.

Pre-installed apps

Now we get to the pre-installed apps, of which there are 27 in all, many of which we have already covered, such as AppHighlights, Calendar, Camera, Contacts Transfer, Internet Explorer, Maps, Marketplace, Messaging, Music+Video (Zune), Nokia Maps, Drive and Music, Office, People, Phone and Pictures.

Of the remaining apps, Alarm, Calculator and Settings are quite self-explanatory.

This leaves eBay, ESPN, Groupon, Help+How-To, Sky News, Trip Advisor and We Care. The eBay app is nicely done, with the ability to perform guided searches as well as general searches, and the option to enable notifications to keep an eye on that must-have item you've bid on.

ESPN and Sky News are simple but nicely presented news apps, and Trip Advisor provides the ability to read and write reviews of hotels, restaurants, attractions and flights.

Groupon is a mobile extension of the Groupon website, providing localised discount vouchers for shops, restaurants and so on. Finally, Help+How-To is an online user guide for Windows Phone, and We Care is a little app from Nokia to let you know that the company cares about your privacy, which is nice.

All of these apps are easy to use, and can be uninstalled from the Nokia Lumia 710 if needed, by long-pressing on the app name in the app list and selecting Uninstall.

We accept that the Windows Phone Marketplace isn't as big as the App Store or Android Market, but there are some excellent gems in there, and more are appearing every day.

Every day in every city around the world, people are pursuing their own adventures, big or small. Explore the world around you with amazing camera technology, exclusive Live Tile apps and unique design features. This is Lumia.